Dorrell's Monday Press Conference

In his weekly press conference, Head Coach <b>Karl Dorrell</b> talks about the big win over Oregon and how he'll prepare for the USC game with three weeks off...

Head Coach Karl Dorrell addressed the media Monday in his weekly press
conference.

"It's a good feeling on this Monday. We have some time to rest up for the big
game at the end here. But before we get to talk about that, let's talk about the
game last week, which was obviously a big, big week for our team, a big win. It
was a complete effort for our football area. All three areas had to do some
great things to make some plays for us to come out victorious. All of those
phases did those things in that particular game. Unfortunately we had a punt
return against us, which we haven't had all season long. But we did come back
with a chance to pin them deep in their territory on the one-yard line, and we
were able to do so. Offensively, with some guys nicked up, we had some guys step
up and make some good plays for us. Chris Markey had a very good football game,
missing Maurice Drew. He was very productive in helping our offense. Manuel White has been consistent all season long and has been very productive for us.
We needed his production. Drew Olson made some key plays in critical times to
get the offense moving in the right direction and to sustain some drives. He
made some plays with his feet, he made a play in the throwing game, hitting
Junior Taylor on a big pass in a third-down situation. It was nice to see those
types of things happen for your offense in critical situations. Defensively, we
played very well, with the exception of two or three big plays, and a couple of
them happened early in the games. And then there was one big run in the second
half. But the defense played very well, played inspired ball, and tackled well.
They did a great job on third down. Oregon, I believe, was 2 of 11 on third-down
conversions. They were just tremendous in terms of getting the ball back for our
offense. They only had 58 total plays offensively, which was a low for our
defense. To have that type of success, in an away stadium, it was a great
defensive effort. Overall it was a great win. There were a lot of great
performances throughout the game. It's definitely something we're going to build
on. It's a three-week process in getting ready for the Trojans."

Do you think Saturday's performance was the first time your team really
understood what it takes to play an entire game?

"Saturday's performance wasn't the only indication of learning how to win. We
did it also against Stanford a couple of games before that. It was a great time
for our team to rise up on this occasion and have that kind of effort in this
football game. That is a learning process that any young team has to go through
in tough times, particularly when you're not at home. Our team did make some
steps forward in being able to put away a football team. For the most part we
had the crowd out of the game until late in the second half. But we really
played well, in eliminating the crowd noise as much we could."

What happened on that sequence near the end of the first half?

"There was under a minute left, and we had a face mask penalty. We were
hoping for a bigger one than the five-yarder. It didn't happen. We called a
timeout at that time. At the time we had an injury on the field and we didn't
want that particular player on the field. We needed to get him off the field,
particularly in that situation, just because you don't want to give your
opponent the chance to make a big play on you if you're not where you need to be
on your offensive line. So we had to make an exchange there on our offensive
line, which we wanted to call a timeout. We weren't in field goal range, which
disturbed us at that time. So we took a couple of shots at the endzone. And what
I wanted to do is to make sure we had a couple of shots at the endzone and try
to get us a play down there. Chances are, if you can get a PI penalty, great. If
you can get a touchdown, even better. But we just didn't want to make a mistake
in the middle of the field, which would have given Oregon a chance to get
something happening before the end of the first half. It worked out exactly the
way we wanted it to, other than we didn't come up with any points. When it got
to three seconds on the third down call, we just decided to run it. We knew that
we had the ball coming back in the second half. So we just did not want Oregon
on that field, for any opportunity, to generate any momentum going into the
second half."

Would you have considered a Hail Mary on that last play of the
half?

"Again, I don't want to throw a Hail Mary that goes for an interception,
where our quarterback feels, 'Hey, why did we do that?' We didn't need to do
that. We had the ball back in the second half. It was more for us,
understanding, that we were dictating the control of that football game at that
time. We took a couple of shots, we weren't able to execute it, and we knew we
had the ball coming back in the second half."

If you weren't receiving the second-half kick-off, might you have tried
to get in field goal range?

"It would have been a different situation then. All of those circumstances
led for us to believe to try to take the time off the clock in the first half
and were getting the ball back in the second half."

"We're going to start game-planning as soon as we can, from a coaching
standpoint. On the field, no we won't. We won't start practicing much of our
plan until the latter part of this week and definitely into next week. This week
we're preparing as a staff as well as we can our game plan, but not necessarily
implementing those things on the field as of yet."

Is this too much time off before this game?

"I could probably give you a better answer on that if we came up short for
the game. We like what we're doing. We're going to use this as a great benefit.
We're a little bit banged up. With Marcedes Lewis and Maurice Drew hurt. There
are some guys that have shoulder dings and stuff like that. This is a great time
to get those guys back healthy. Secondly, it gives us that much more sense of
time in preparation for the game. We think it's a huge benefit for our team at
this point in the season."

How has Drew Olson progressed at this point in the season?

"He's playing pretty well. It was good to see him have the production this
past week, at Oregon, which is a tough place to play. He was really good with
the football. There weren't any throws out there that were potential
interceptions. When he didn't have anything he took off with his feet and made
some plays on some critical third-down situations. I thought he handled the
crowd noise and all of those things very, very well. So it was a solid football
game for him."

What do you think has changed in your offense in converting so many
third-downs?

"That was an emphasis this week. We wanted to get ourselves into third down
situations where the percentages aren't so hard for the offense. You don't want
to be in third and twenty. You don't want to be third and fifteen. If you can
get yourself in third-and-five, third-and-six, third-and-three, those situations
we like our chances of converting. That's hard to do against a good football
team. We had some third-and-eights and third-and-tens. And usually those go in
favor of the defense. But our guys stepped up and made some plays when we needed
them to. That shows some growth offensively, and the attention we've made about
those issues in the course of the week."

Were you pleased - and surprised - by Oregon not running the ball very
much?

"Not really surprised. They're an offense that mixes it up pretty well. They
have a quarterback who's a very active player, both running the football and
throwing. I think some of the issues that they were facing...their quarterback
was a little banged up. He looked to me like he was a little banged up. They
didn't have their tight end. They had an offensive lineman that was hurt. So
they had some injuries in key areas, and they might have thought they just
couldn't necessarily come in and run the football on us. Even though they had
some success running the ball, I think our pace of the game when we got out
ahead of them, that changed their game plan some. We did a nice job with our
offense generating against their defense, and that probably changed their
mindset of themselves getting back in the football game."

How pleased are you with Justin Medlock's performance, and what distance
are you comfortable with him kicking a field goal?

"50. The 50-yard range. Medlock has been great. He has had a very good
season. His range is right around 50, maybe 52 if the wind is at your back. I
talked with him just before the game. He felt great about his pre-game, he was
kicking everything. He felt really good about his preparation for the game. I
had a great feeling that he was going to make some plays for us. The first kick
that came up short, he was right on the money in terms of the angle, it just
came up short. The wind kicked up right at that play and it knocked it down. The
next two, I felt confident he was going to make those plays. And we were
fortunate enough for him to execute those plays and get them down for us. He's
only had one bad game and other than that, he's played very well."

Are you comfortable with him attempting 55 yards?

"He had a good game, but I'm not really ready to make him jump to that big of
a difference. Psychologically it could be a big difference for him. He feels
good at 50, and 52, which is about his range. And I feel the same way. At his
position, it's important to have the confidence going into a kick like that,
that he can make them, and he's been making them. We'll keep the same pattern as
we've had most of the year."

What will the three weeks mean to some of the injured players like
Maurice, Marcedes and Justin London? Do you anticipate by the time of the USC
game they'll be pretty close to healthy?

"They will be better, I don't know if they'll be 100%. The other flip side of
having three weeks off is, as a coach, you're concerned with having three weeks
off and not playing, when you're facing the #1-ranked team in the country. There
are timing issues. You want the production that you've been doing. And the level
of things you've been doing on a week to week basis, when you change a little
bit, you're concerned about that, especially in a game like this. Our approach
is that we're going to get our health back but we're still going to practice all
the details, fundamentals and techniques this week and get a chance to nurse
some of those guys who have injuries, so they won't practice as much. But going
into next week, we're really going to have two good weeks of practice. And we
really need two good weeks of practice to really get our game plan to where it
should be."

Will you scrimmage more next week?

"We won't scrimmage. We'll probably stay the same course as what we've been
doing in our normal preparation. We'll do our run drills, and seven-on-sevens,
and pass-under-pressure, those types of things. That won't change. That's
something you want to be consistent with. We'll just have two weeks of that type
of practice. But guarding against not banging each other up. We're just trying
to get things executed and get our timing down."

Does it help you that USC has to play its other rivalry game against
Notre Dame the week before you?

"I don't think that's a big benefit. The benefit we have is they play a game
while we're not playing. There's always a chance happening in that game that you
can game plan from or help, whether it's a rivalry game or not. They have a game
before our game, which gives a chance of getting a better feel for what's going
on with what they're doing offensively and defensively and on special teams.
Again, it can work against you. That's why I'm very guarded about having three
weeks off. I've never had three weeks off, in any place I've been. This is
different for me. I had to talk to some of my coaching colleagues that have been
in maybe similar situations like this, on just drawing some opinions in what
they've done in their history. It's a challenging task. We understand it's a big
game, for one. We understand it's an opportunity to get back healthy, which is a
good thing. So there are a lot of things that are positives about situations
like this. But the biggest negative could be that you haven't played. We're
going to try to do what we can from a practice standpoint to put ourselves in
game-like situations so our timing and things like that don't get rusty."

Do you almost have to treat this like a bowl game?

"No. The feeling is not the same. This is your rival game. It's a big game.
Not to say that the bowl game isn't a big game, but this is a different game.
This still makes a difference in where you'll be in your conference. Plus it's
your last Pac-10 game, so that makes it the utmost importance. It's bigger than
a bowl game. Our preparation is going to be key for us to be successful, and
when we get this opportunity to play."

What were some of the suggestions your coaching colleagues made?

"There were some things. But I'm not prepared to share those things.
There are some things I'm considering. It's a process we're thinking through.
It's pretty much my gut feeling it's where we're going. But it's good to bounce
things off people who have been in that situation before, just to see what
they've done in their past. If anything, it confirmed things."

In the fourth quarter, when you're running the ball and trying to take
time off the clock, would you consider what you did good play calling, given
Oregon knew what you were going to do?

"It's absolutely great play calling. That's the style of ball I want to play.
If we're up in the game and we have a chance to finish a football game, then
we're going to finish the football game. That's the style that's important to
me. When we get a chance to control the line of scrimmage and make an impact and
take some time off the clock, and we have the people to do it, we're going to do
it. That's me. You're right. They knew we were going to run it, and so what?
We're going to run the football. We had to convert some third downs and we did
so. That's important. That's how you finish a football game. That's how a team
grows up, given a situation like that, when they know you're going to do
something and you still execute. Our guys did a great job of doing those things
and taking five minutes or so off the clock."

"Derrick is back. He's feeling better. He started feeling better the night
before. He's going to be out this week until everything clears up, but he'll be
fine. Ben Lorier had a concussion, too. He's in a similar situation. He ought to
be fine in a week and be ready to go for next week. Everyone else just had nicks
and bruises and should be fine at some point later on this week."

Did you think that the play calling for game was a throwback to earlier
in the season, when you ran the ball more?

"This game dictated a lot of the reason why you run the ball more or whether
you pass. Last week when we were down most of the game, I don't think there was
a point when we led against Washington State, that was a different type of
mindset. You're trying to get back in a football game, and you're going to have
more passes than runs. Conversely, we were up in this game pretty much after the
first two or three series in the game. We felt we had pretty good control and
continuity offensively, to run the football and mix some things up. We decided
to in a way that we thought was our strength at that time, which was running the
football. Those are going to ebb and flow in the course of any game. When you're
winning a game, you want to stay in control of that game. If you're losing a
game, and you want to try to get back in it, the best way to get back in it is
to be effective throwing the ball to get you in that situation."

Is there anything you learned last year in relation to the USC game that,
now with more time, you'll be able to factor into your preparation?

"There are a lot of things that we can anticipate going into this game with
more time to think about it. Last year we played against two of the best teams
in the country. We played against Oklahoma, and we played against USC at the end
of the season, and the comparison and experience of both of those teams should
give you a pretty good feel of the type of game we need to play. That's
something we all think about. The players who were on the team a year ago, and
have been in those types of situations, they know the caliber of game we have to
play. We have time to think about those things, and also get ourselves ready and
healthy, and do what we need to do to be successful in this game."

Do you look forward to these three weeks and the build-up to this
game?

"I look forward to the opportunity. There's no question about that. This is
the first time I'm experiencing three weeks before this opportunity. That's the
difference. But we're going to use it as a positive, and getting a lot of things
to the point where it's going to give us the best chance to win this football
game. What an opportunity it is. The #1-ranked team right now, and they're
also the team that's 20 minutes from here. That's fun. This is what you want in
college football, this opportunity. I'm more anxious than anything. But I have
some time."